


After Over After

by Quedaboss



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: (also a pretty big time skip), So many OCs, but guess who's back!!, seriously, they're everywhere
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-06-10 03:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6937741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quedaboss/pseuds/Quedaboss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When forced to go on a trip to the center of nindroid creation, a young boy gets more than what he bargained for. Should he side with the nindroids that he's trusted for years? Or should he agree with the opposing group he now has to be a part of?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Sewers

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This story was originally posted on Wattpad, but I've decided to post it here as well. Compared to the Wattpad version, this one will have minor edits that I feel make the story better.
> 
> As for the content of the story, I am unsure of whether or not I should call it an AU. The fic makes use of a rather large time skip, but still follows the main canon, with some additions. That being said, season six is the current most recent season, so anything from seven and onward may not be present in the plot.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

"Patience is a virtue," he kept telling himself. Trapped in his digital prison, he kicked over one of his coded creations. "Well it's a boring virtue!"

He remained where he believed was still the sewer system left over from New Ninjago City, and waited. There's not much else he could do, given his circumstances, but he waited even longer like he felt he had been doing for the past few centuries or so. That was probably an exaggeration because boredom has a tendency to stretch timelines like rubber bands.

The prisoner surveyed his surroundings. He was left here in his own personal digiverse, but that was what bothered him. No one was there for him to effect. What good was it creating digital monsters and then setting them free, if no one was around to scream when they saw it?

Terrorizing humans. There's nothing quite like it.

But what if he could rule them?

His controversial thought lingered in his mind, taunting him with its very existence. He had never even considered integrating himself with the weak species. _Yes_ , he thought after he meticulously thought it over, weighing the pros and cons, charmed by the image of himself as the leader they bowed to. But he'd have to wait even longer. To ensure success, he must wait until his opposition is gone. He was incredibly lucky to be alive, and he knew it. He remembered how his physical form was destroyed, and shuddered at that memory within the confines of his hard drive.

Waiting was so much easier with an end in mind.

Alone with his horrible, evil thoughts, he was thinking again.

_Just until they're gone._


	2. The Test

The bell rung, and no one could possibly be happier than Manny Rosewood.

Not even having a newer model of a nindroid for a teacher could have made learning about electricity even remotely fun. Sudden happiness turned to immediate disappointment however, because Manny remembered that that bell wasn't the dismissal bell, which was the only thing that could let a student escape this learning prison.

His next class was History.

_Just great!_ he thought. _If I'm going to be bored to death, might as well have crazy and probably made up stories being told in the background!_

He overheard two of his classmates from the class before his as they were exiting the room "How do you think you did?" said a tall, blonde girl.

"I think I did alright, the test was easy." her friend replied.

Only one word resonated within the bored boy's mind.

_Test._

The one that he had ever so conveniently forgotten about and/or refused to study for. Oh joy.

Manny found his seat, and prepared himself for the worst, which could possibly mean dying a horrible, slow and painful death via pencil and paper.

_Why do we even use pencil and paper anymore?_ Manny thought, trying to distract himself from even last minute cramming. _Why not just scan my brain or something, see if I know this stuff? We have literal nindroids for teachers! It couldn't be that hard! Anything but this test!_ He finished his mental monologue turned rant, and found a new distraction. The mechanical teacher.

He was obviously a nindroid, but he was not one that he had ever seen before. That wasn't to out of the ordinary, because it was rare to have the same nindroid for a teacher for more than a few days in a row. He was also definitely one of the newer models, one of the ones designed to take jobs around the city. Manny saw his eyes, which were currently a shade of bright purple, but eye color for nindroids is only a facade. They can change that on a whim to whatever color they wish. But what he found the most interesting about his teacher, was a form of an ID directly above the nindroid's purple, left eye. All of the nindroids have this. There read a code, used like a name badge to tell which droid is which. This particular one read "ZA 78-69". It wasn't important, just a nice time waster for Manny to keep himself from being bored to tears.

The nindroid stood up, taking huge stacks of paper with him. This worried many of the students because there weren't that many in the room. This test is going to be monstrous.

Finally realizing he needed to study, Manny tried to remember some things he would have been taught if he were paying attention. He began mentally rehearsing another silent monologue.

_Ok, so there was that big snake that ate a bunch of stuff, and the crazy purple snake who did something..._ He looked at the black and orange serpentine he had for a classmate who had just gotten her test. _Uhhh... Then the goofy looking four armed guy caused some chaos and the five guys stopped him. I know one of them was fire... Oh! And then the nindroids! They were made after the first Overlord battle. The second one I know nothing about except some guy died or something. That's what you get for taking on the Overlord I guess._

There was a shuffle on his desk. He looked down, and a packet of white papers were there to greet him. His teacher was still passing them out to other students, so he didn't have to start just yet.

When standing upright, the mechanical teacher looked different. He was dressed in the more traditional red, purple and black nindroid outfit, one that Manny thought only existed in text books. His dark brown hair also stood up almost completely straight, like grass blades that grew to close together.

When he made his way back to the front of the room, he turned off the digital displays on the walls showing maps of ninjago, pictures of things that were probably on the test, and a picture of the weird four armed guy that turned into an inside joke for his class. Manny thought he heard an "awwww..." of disappointment when that particular picture went dark.

Wanting desperately to delay the doom spelled out for him in black ink on white paper, he thought of the now black panels on the walls that showed vivid photos only minutes ago.

_Why haven't those been upgraded yet?_ He thought, still not touching the test. _The science lab already has holograms! We could at least have 3D pictures here. It's called modernization people!_

He thought about passing a note that read "What did you get for questions 1 - 1000?" as a joke to the serpentine girl who was easily the brightest student in the room. That was a horrible idea, because nindroids see everything, so no note was passed.

It was finally inevitable. Manny reluctantly looked at the test for the first time, and quickly realized that one of the only questions he knew the answer to was the line at the top asking for his name. He would've known two answers had he even known the date.

"Manny Rosewood" was soon spelled out on that line.

The first question was easier than he expected.

"How many Fangblades did it take to awaken the Great Devourer?"

A.) 1

B.) 10

C.) 4

D.) 20

_The Great Devourer was that really big, hungry snake, right?_ he thought. A quick glance back and he was staring directly at the serpentine behind him's mouth. _She could fit about twenty teeth in there,_ he thought, and filled in the bubble on his answer sheet to choose D.) 20. _Easy enough!_

"How long ago was the second Overlord battle?"

A.) 700 years ago

B.) 300 years ago

C.) 1500 years ago

D.) 1000 years ago

_Pffffft._ Manny thought, baffled. _Is there an "E.) A really long time ago" option? Do we really even need to know how long ago it was?_ He filled in bubble D.) 1000 as a safe guess.

Looking at a few of the next questions, he was beginning to get as frustrated as a dog whose toy slid under a couch.

"Where were the Golden Weapons forged?"

"What kind of serpentine was Arcturus?"

"How many ninja were there in total?"

"How many different elemental powers are there?"

"Where is Metalonia located on a map, in relation to Ninjago?"

"How many dragons were there in the first Overlord battle?"

It was at this very point that Manny began filling in random answers while mentally screaming in frustration. When done, he flipped the page to reveal a plethora of short answer questions.

_Great._ he thought. _Just kill me now._

"Name all of the elements known. (3 points)" he read.

_Are you kidding me?!?_ Manny nearly exploded out loud. All of them?!? Why?! Why are they important!?! But the question is only worth three points. There must not be very many. Six maybe? A half a point each?

Frustrated as ever, he started scribbling words down.

_Fire, can't miss fire. Then there was that guy with the crazy hair. What was he again? Nature. Nature! Then there was that cool water girl._ Thinking of his previous science class, he added lightning to the mix. _Where there's lightning, there's thunder I guess..._ Thunder found itself jotted down beside lightning. _One more! Think! Think Manny, Think!!_ he tried to coach himself through the question. _That's it! Thinking! That one guy! Master of the mind!_

It took all of the effort possible for Manny to not shout "Done!" and slam down his pencil on his desk after just that one question. That would have to wait a good long while. Judging by the clock on the wall, about an hour and a half. A nice long nap was beginning to look pretty good to him right now.

Reluctantly, he forced himself to look on to the next question.

"Who commandeered the Black Bounty after the Mega Weapon was used the first time? (1 point)"

_It was the aliens! Stupid aliens..._ Manny looked up to see his nindroid of a teacher reading over his test.

"You're lucky," he said, apparently unaware of the unspoken rule that you don't talk to kids taking a test. Not that Manny minded. "This is the fun stuff! Other kids last week were being tested on some random mess of words. You guys on the other hand get to hear stories of ninja, skeletons and pirates!"

_Pirates!_ Manny thought, as he erased his aliens answer.

"You know, some people think one of the ninja was a nindroid like us." the teacher continued. "Think of how cool that would have been though!" He had hints of jealousy and envy in his purple eyes. "I mean, he would have been against the Overlord in both Overlord battles... but otherwise, that would have been awesome!"

A frustrated "shhhhhh!" came from one of the students. The robot shut up pretty quickly after that, and sheepishly slunk back to the front of the room where he was supposed to be. Had it been up to Manny, the nindroid would still be talking.

"Why was the second Overlord battle significant? (4 points)"

"Great. Another question.

It was significant because... because... Wait, wasn't this the one where the guy died or something?

It was significant because someone died. _Perfect answer! Next!_

Not wanting to answer all the questions remaining, Manny impatiently skipped to the last question.

"If you ever meet an elemental, what do you do? (4 points)"

_Finally! A question I can answer! This has literally been drilled into our squishy brains since we could comprehend the concept of a brain!_

With sudden confidence, he started scribbling again like madness were driven down to his fingertips. Even if his response was just two words.

"Report them."

Still confident from his sudden rush of intelligence, Manny watched as the world visible to him slowly grew blurrier by the second. It was only a matter of minutes before the everything faded to black.

He didn't even feel his face hit the desk.


	3. The Slumbering Student

"Time!" the nindroid exclaimed rather enthusiastically. Within seconds, all the papers on every desk disappeared in the blink of an eye, and then showed up again on the teachers desk in a neat stack.

All the students present were tired looking, but with one major outlier. The mechanical teacher checked the seating chart to see who it was.

It was Manny Rosewood, who was as sprawled out as he could be in his chair and leaning forward on his desk with his head down, fast asleep.

"What should we do?" he asked the entire class, minus one.

"Um, we wake him up?" was the only confused response he got.

"Well I know that, but... Oh I don't know, anybody have an air horn on them?" A mischievous little smirk was etching its was onto his robotic face, and the class began to see exactly what he was asking with his question.

While the air horn was out of the question, kids began to offer other items they had.

"I got a hoodie!" shouted one student from the back of the room.

"Mmmmmmm... But that won't make much noise..."the nindroid rejected.

"I could scream!" shouted another student asked from the center of a huddle of kids. He then made a big show of sucking in enough air to almost make his lungs explode before a girl stopped him by clamping her hand over his mouth.

"I don't think that'll be necessary..." the humanoid computer rejected again, seemingly unaware of how many eardrums the girl had just rescued from a horrible fate.

"What about a brick?" the final student suggested.

While everyone else was questioning why their one of their peers had such an archaic building material on them, they heard the nindroid speak again.

"Perfect." His mischievous smirk worked its way back, and soon, the rest of the class followed suit.

A few minutes later, and the students did their best to stack the cubically shaped desks on top of one another to provide a tower to drop the brick from a slightly higher altitude.

"Again, perfect." the nindroid repeated while eyeing the makeshift mini skyscraper. He had his back to the wall and his hands close to his chest in a pyramid shape, like he was imitating a crazy, mastermind of a villain. He attempted a maniacal laugh too, which failed horribly and only ended up passing the laughter on to the students.

"Shh!" went the walking calculator as he tried to fix his mistake. "We don't want to wake him up like this!" Still, a few kids has their hands over their mouths as they tried their best to suppress their raging giggle fits.

Feeling like his own class would have a mutinous rebellion against him and awaken their slumbering peer via laughter, the nindroid knew he needed to act soon.

He started the climb up the stacked cubes, careful to not let them fall out from underneath him. About halfway up, he held out his hand. The oddball student who brought the brick handed it to him. Once the top of the stack was reached, the nindroid looked down. He was glad that it was he who climbed this vertically suspended, messy creation and not any of the kids. For one, if any of them had fallen from this height, it could mean a premature trip to the scrapper for him. Secondly, he could predict where his little, red noise maker would land. Unless someone opens a bunch of windows to find a spontaneous rush of gale force winds outside, which would send everything flying across the room, the brick would land directly in front of a sleeping Manny. A bright red target was mentally painted there in the nindroid's mind.

When he held the heavy brick out in front of him with nothing but the air underneath it, the entire class grew silent with anticipation under him.

At long last, the brick was released from the nindroid"s vice like grip, and about twenty pairs of eyes watched its descent. Twenty five if you count some of the glasses.

With a thud, the brick hit the floor, right in the bull's-eye of the mental target. It wasn't as loud as the class was hoping, but it still did it's assigned job. In one fluid motion, Manny's eyes flew open at speeds usually only obtained by racing hover cars, and his arms flailed up like two elephant trunks when they suddenly jerk up on their back legs. In a flash, Manny was three feet back as he slid his chair backwards, nearly knocking over a few unlucky students like bowling pins in the process. A fair sized puddle left on the desk was all the evidence left of where his mouth had been.

Roaring laughter erupted in the room so loud, that nindroids two floors up almost came down to check if everything was alright.

Even if he wasn't very close friends with any of his classmates, he couldn't help but laugh with them a little bit. Everyone found it to be funny.

After a while, the nindroid tried to regain a small shred of order in the classroom by getting the kids attention.

"Alright listen up!" he shouted. Even the kid who usually had their finger up their nose in the back of the classroom had turned to face him. "Since you all have learned about some of the crucial events of our past, the administration decided it was time you all saw the outcome." All the kids waited somewhat patiently with baited breath. "We're all going to see what is now known as Nindroid Tower, and the current home of the nindroids."

The classroom exploded into chaos. A good portion of the students had begun chanting "Field trip!" as loudly as they could. The kid who had the brick on them had started screaming, and would not stop. Happy high fives ran rampant around the room like an untamed animal. The doors opened, and students flooded the halls like stampedes of hungry beasts.

As quickly as possible, the students were herded onto one of thirty four buses, which was supposed to be one per class, but a few kids must have gotten on the wrong one. Oops. Manny wished he was one of those kids so he could escape to his friends, but he had no such luck. To many nindroids were close to him to dart off somewhere.

When everyone was inside the bus, the tour started. Even though it was better than being stuck in another class, Manny was bored again. Not even looking out the windows at the semi-transparent blue roads that spanned all across the city could ease the feeling of absolutely nothing. Another bus sped up to drive beside his bus.

"If you would notice, the bus beside us has no tires." his nindroid teacher for the day began to explain.

"What are tires?" Manny thought. There was never a time in his life that cars and buses didn't float over the roads. Some of the other kids looked confused too.

"That would be because of the data recovered from the former New Ninjago City." the nindroid continued. "We have evidence proving that that city was every bit as modernized as we are in the city of the Overlord's Republic. However, we think New Ninjago City reverted backwards technologically after the second Overlord battle."

It was a short ride, and the bus slowed to a stop.

"We're here." The students heard.


	4. The Tower

There, in front of everyone, was a skyscraper that would have cut through the clouds, had there been any. The students looked upon it with wonder in their eyes, because this was the first time they had seen it so close. People weren't normally permitted to be this close. The nindroids however, regarded it as nothing out of the ordinary.

As soon as possible, everyone was ushered into the the main lobby of the building. A makeshift stage was set up at the far back of the room. Students smooshed through the doors until the room was flooded with so many teenagers that they crowded against the stage. Slowly the nindroids made their way to the raised platform.

This was the first time Manny had seen so many nindroids in close proximity to one another. For the first time, he realized exactly how diverse they all looked. As far as their bodies, they were perfectly symmetrical. They were all the exact same height, a bit on the shorter side when compared to the average human, and had the same build with similarly shaped facial features. But that was where the resemblance stopped. All of the nindroids had hair that stood up strait, but at various degrees of verticality and neatness. The color of their hair was another story altogether, as it ranged from black to white, one color to every color, and striped to speckled. One Droid had chestnut brown hair with blue roots, and cerulean blue eyes to match. He was cracking jokes with the rainbow haired nindroid next to him. Another one on the opposite side of the stage had red on the left and yellow on the right and it was split perfectly down the middle. ZA 78-69, Manny's teacher, was the most human looking nindroid present.

They began their tour with a chance to ask questions. Manny didn't feel like waiting a while for something interesting to happen, so he tried to form an escape plan. He was stuck in the dead center of the crowd, and even more nindroids blocked off every possible escape route imaginable. Every door, hallway and window was guarded, and he thought he saw a few in the air vents too. Nindroids are weird. And so, Manny remained stuck in the center of a bubbling boredom bequeather.

"Why are your names so weird?" asked a girl from the back of the pack.

"Weird is a relative term." said one Droid, apparently named WI 83-80.

"I believe the better question is, 'Why do you humans and serpentine have weird names?'" That was asked by ZA 78-69.

"How many people here are named Cass?" yet another nindroid asked. Three hands shot up, two encrusted in scales, like mini rockets. "That would be why." the nindroid continued. "Out of such a small percentage of your populations, you have three people with the same name. Here, we just can't afford the inefficiencies of having human-like names."

"Can I get my hair done like yours?" someone else asked while pointing to the rainbow haired robot, named RN 66-87.

Laughing, "Sorry, I designed it myself." was the only response given.

Manny was half tempted to ask "Can we get going now?" but then he remembered what his teacher told him. People think that one of the ninja was a nindroid. Asking that, probably wasn't a good idea.

"What's the coolest thing about being a nindroid?" another kid asked.

"We can party all night, and not get tired!" shouted ZA 78-69 again. About half of the nindroids cheered as if in agreement, and most of the kids just laughed. There were a few nindroids who sighed deeply at his statement though, as if they were fed up with his antics. Then again, they probably were.

A different Droid, one who had not been cheering, gave a more formal answer. "No day is ever the same!"

"How do you guys switch jobs all the time?" the kid right in front of him questioned. This created a buzz amongst the students, so many people must have been wondering.

"Why don't we just show them?" asked a droid, to far away for Manny to read his name.

"The thing is, we can be reprogrammed on a dime. Want us to do something different? BAM! We do something different!" The robot speaking pulled a small, thin chip out of his pocket and opened a panel in his right forearm. Holding the chip up so everyone could see, he started talking again. "Well, this is that reprogramming." The chip found itself embedded inside the open panel alongside so many other chips that it would take forever to count them all. "And, it just so happens to have all the data for a tour guide. Lets go!"

Manny heard a serpentine next to him muttering to himself. "So they learn everything on the fly..."

After all of the nindroids had made their own chips disappear, the ones guarding the massive doors stepped to the side as the doors swung open ever so slowly, as if the were moving in slow motion. Manny thought he heard them creak a bit, which was odd because everything in the tower looked so modern and new.

Not to long afterwards, the students found themselves being split up again into even more groups. Somehow, Manny ended up with ZA 78-69 again, which he was actually grateful for. The guy seemed to have the most fun loving and least serious programmed personality of the mix.

Finally, his group wound up exploring the tower, which was more expansive than anyone originally thought.

"I guess I'm supposed to tell you guys to stick together." The nindroid of a leader said to the students. He then eyed everyone in the group suspiciously before snapping back into a goofy grin. "But I don't see why we can't have a little fun while we're here!" So the group waited for all the other hordes of tourists delve higher into the tower so they would leave them alone. Once every other group was out of sight, he explained his plan.

"What I'm about to show you," the nindroid explained, "is more or less what goes on behind the closed doors. I figured that while you're here, you might as well get the full experience! Since the tower is so tall, sure there are a lot of elevators... But there are even more stairs!" Most of the students had blank looks of confusion, except for Manny's, which spelled out excitement. He seemed to have caught on, and ZA 78-69 would officially be his favorite nindroid for letting him do it.

The nindroid picked up a rather large tray from a nearby table and handed it to one of the kids.

"This is a common pass time here, which has been dubbed, by yours truly, Stair Surfing!" His goofy grin was back again as he ushered overly excited kids, Manny included, to the top of that particular flight of stairs.

One by one, the kids found themselves flying down the stairs on makeshift sleds while making an odd assortment of noises as each bump was hit, which was a lot because there were about a hundred stairs on most of the cases. Eventually, kids were going down three, or even four at a time. More trays were discovered, which allowed for races. Manny ended up racing ZA 78-69, but Manny insists the nindroid cheated. After waiting a bit longer, the nindroid tried to go down the stairs with two trays and also while standing up, but he fell off halfway down and rolled the rest of the way. He laughed it off, before telling everyone that he needed to put a bit more effort into practicing that in order to beat RN 66-87 in a race.

After letting the kids have their fun, and investigating the new skid marks on the floor, the students were rounded up to move on the rest of the tour.


	5. Past Blast

He waited.

And waited.

Hard drives are boring.

Frustrated with a lack of events, he waited a bit more.

He was really bored through it all, but nothing ever happened to him, so time forced him to wait even longer.

He was getting incredibly sick of waiting, but he couldn't really do much of anything right now except come to the conclusion that waiting sucks.

Until he heard footsteps.

Loud, steady footprints that seemed to be amplified in the silence.

Soon afterwards, he could feel his hard drive prison shaking around him. The person must have picked it up, no doubt about it. This was causing tremors in his digiverse as he could see his creations built out of boredom begin to sport deep cracks.

Eventually, he realized what could happen. If he had just been found by someone with a computer, he could have one of things that he had wanted since he was left behind in his digital realm.

This mysterious person could mean his freedom.


	6. The Tour

Taking all the trays from the now hyper teenagers, ZA 78-69 had a tad hint of difficulty getting the students up the stairs that they rocketed down hundreds of times, not even five minutes before.

_Human and serpentine teens are really quite amusing. Their mannerisms would suggest that they are really five year old children,_ the nindroid thought, taken aback by the parallels. Luckily for him, he caught himself before saying that out loud.

"Where to next?" asked the smart serpentine girl from Manny's class, that he really didn't want to be in the same group as him. Things just weren't going for him today the way the normally would.

After a short walk, the nindroid had a response to give.

"Well, here is where we are 'to next.'" He spun around and gestured to whatever enormous contraption was behind him. "This is called an assembly line, and the biggest one in all the lands! Also known as the birthplace of all nindroids!"

The assembly line was multi-leveled, and a great number of stair cases ran up alongside it, almost like platforms to view a caged animal.

Traveling up the winding path to the top, students watched as wires were soldiered to a complicated computer board on one of the hundreds of conveyor belts. As soon as it reached the end of the belt, it fell into a bin underneath, that was almost full.

A small ways up, similar parts were seen being fused to the insides of a circular looking tube. No one dared to ask what its finished result would be.

Finally, the top of the stair case was reached, and showed a rather intriguing display along side it. A droid was in the midst of assembly, but so far, it was like none any of the students had ever seen before. Then again, the only nindroids they had ever seen were like ZA 78-69 and his crew. The mystery droid was much more monstrous in size, and lacking the normal human proportions. It looked like somebody took a picture of someone and stretched the image horizontally as far as it would go.

Some students gazed upon it with awe, especially Manny, who was busying himself with fictional stories being made up on the fly about evil robots taking over the planet. Once completed, the foreign nindroid would have fit into his fantasies perfectly.

Noticing the wonder struck kids, the more human nindroid prepared an explanation.

"That, my friends, is a rescue droid."ZA 78-69 effectively demolished the alternate world Manny had been creating for the past minute. "Its main function is to partake in dangerous missions that none of us could. They fill the roles of firefighters, construction workers, coast guard and if truly needed, security. That's also why there are so many of them being made, we lose so many of them in the field. They also are... how do I put this? ...Rather primitive? They are lacking the standardized humanoid programming, so they really are just mighty tin cans."

The kids were herded away from the hulking piece of metal, and ushered to a new place. They passed through a rather wide hallway with some odd blue pictures hanging on the walls. After thoroughly ransacking his brain, Manny came up with the right word for them. Blueprints. They seemed to show different concepts of the floating cars he was used to.

The hall was connected to a large, open space that reminded the kids of a control room. Hundreds of computers were arranged in long rows, with human-like nindroids behind each one, spiky hair and all. There was a massive screen suspended in the middle of the wall, in front of where the computers were facing. It was showing a display of all the layers of roads in the city.

"What are they doing?" the serpentine girl asked.

The nindroid's response wasn't quite what she was expecting. "I haven't the slightest idea, but it looks pretty official! As the droid who started the popular game of Stair surfing, Master knows better than to let someone like me work here!" He had a mischievous smirk etched on his face that seemed to compliment his carefree tone of voice very well.

Manny, who liked to explore more than most other kids saw an old filing cabinet filled to the brim with papers and folders. He gave the one that was sticking out a bit by its corner a gentle tug, and the folder slid out into his hands. He opened it as the nindroid was talking again.

"That guy's playing games!" He pointed to a computer screen and the nindroid behind it whirled around defensively, face flustered as he tried to block his screen. "Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."

Manny cracked open the folder. Inside was the same blueprint of a car he had stumbled on earlier, but crinkled, and worn a bit around its edges. It had a bit of a musty smell to it, which made it seem a bit out of place, almost like someone had to use extreme caution to make it last this long, a stark contrast to the sparkly and shiny everything here. He looked curiously at the logo at the top left hand corner. It read "Borg Industries", a name he had never heard before.

He found the next sheet of paper to be even more interesting. It was a sheet of notes that someone with incredibly geometric and rigid handwriting produced.

_It seems like the hover cars were already in production in the distant past, but were discontinued for a long while for a reason still unknown. We today find it odd that those people reverted backwards to their more primitive and inefficient forms of travel- cars with wheels._ Manny flipped the page to reveal swarms of words on the flip side, and not wanting to read them all, he turned to the next item in the folder as his nindroid guide was droning on and pointing to something on the display.

It was another blueprint, just as weathered as the other one. The "Borg Industries" logo was also present. But instead of a car being traced in white lines, there was a human-like shape. _A nindroid._ he thought as he examined the lines that represented wires and gears. The one drawn on the blue paper wasn't like the ones he knew though. The one in the drawing had a hood that covered its entire head, save its left eye. A thought of realization struck him like lightning. _This is the original nindroid! One of the ones the Overlord used! But... what's its design doing here?_

Manny stole a quick glance at his guide, who was still rambling on about the display of road systems. It seemed like the only one who was actually paying attention was the smart serpentine girl so he didn't think he'd be missing much if he stayed a bit longer to look at the rest of the folder's treasures.

A small, partially ripped piece of paper was held by a clip to the back of the nindroid blueprint. Manny took a look at what it said. This time, the hand writing was more flowing, with curves and rounder edges.

_While we were able to recover the original blueprints from the former location, there are some things that still remain a mystery. Basic programming was also rediscovered, which will save time that would have been used to create a moral code, and basic abilities such as walking, but any code written for personalities will have to be recreated. I would suggest this be done as soon as possible. To put simply, if put into production in their current state, they would be like empty, metal shells of people. Able to be almost human, but not quite able to integrate with the human population. They need more human-like life in them._

_-Master_

The note didn't have a logo on it.

_How long ago was this written?_ he thought amazed that the mechanical masterpieces weren't always at the standard they are today. _How long did it take to get to this point?_ He checked for a date on the note, but there was none.

Manny glanced back again at the group he was supposed to be with, and they were regrouping by the door. Knowing the herd would be leaving soon, he scrambled to recollect the papers he moved. He quickly realized that he had opened the folder from the back side, so he flipped it over to get a look at the front. There was a single word stamped onto it, in bold, red letters.

_Classified._

At that instant, Manny shoved the papers into the folders as quickly as he could, tore open the drawer, fed one of the smug little filing cabinets its folder, and sprinted back to his group. A few students looked like they were questioning his sudden reappearance, but no one said anything out loud so their nindroid never noticed. No more than ten seconds later, the robot took a head count before leading them all to the next area. Every kid was curious to see what new fantasy awaited higher up the tower, except one.

Manny Rosewood was more interested in the classified documents.


	7. His Escape

Hard drives are really no match for the outside world. A few minor shakes, and all of the drive's inhabitants are sent bouncing wildly. He gravely wished for his ride to come to a complete stop so he could get off. He desperately wanted to shout "Stop it, you mortal!" as loudly as he could, but he knew he wouldn't be heard.

Until the violent shaking stopped.

The sound of rumbling still echoing in his ears was replaced with blaring rock and roll music. Confused, but relatively optimistic, he had absolutely no idea where he was, but he was most definitely not in the sewers anymore.

A few minutes passed, and to his surprise, he had finally found a way out of his digital prison. The idiot must have wanted to see what was on the hard drive.

The fool who found him apparently did have a computer, and had unknowingly given him an escape route into another digiverse, his said computer. Once he left his previous digital world behind in exchange for the unknown, he was able to track his rescuer's every digital move.

The most recent one, was searching for an estimated selling price for hard drives like the one he was trapped in for so long. It wasn't much.

The computer was also the source of the music, which was playing a long playlist of similar songs. The owner of the computer was also a few weeks behind on their aircraft insurance payment, as notified by a few emails. A few others informed both the user and he about an incoming deepstone shipment that should be at a shop in two days. Their desktop background was a photo of a field, which seemed to be growing tea leaves. But the computer itself wasn't the important part. What was more important, was that it was connected to a vast criminal network, where his rescuer seemed to look up odd jobs for a payment. 

As he allowed himself to be leaked into the network, he had one thought on his mind. _How his newly found freedom would allow for a glorious return._


	8. Network Crawling

After being leaked into the ever so convenient network, he had a exorbitant amount of freedom. He traveled from computer to computer, gradually making his way over all of Ninjago. He couldn't stay in one place for very long though, because he was technically still a virus. If someone saw him messing with their computer, they may try to erase him.

After taking a leisurely stroll all throughout the digital lands, he finally landed on the doorstep of where he wanted to come back to for so long. This place was the perfect perch to sit at and have everything you need come to you when you need it. Except for nindroids, they would be needing new designs and programming of ginormous proportions.

He was careful to have a backup plan in the sewers before anything bad happened to him. In case of emergency, he had copied his digital essence into a spare hard drive and left it there so he could hold onto the small shred of hope that he could reemerge one day. After his hard work, and lots of waiting, he had finally reaped its first reward. 

The Overlord was finally back at Borg Industries.


End file.
